Abuja, Nigeria - Muhammadu Buhari
has been sworn in for a second term
as Nigeria 's president, following a
campaign that focused on tackling
security threats and rooting out
corruption.
The 76-year-old leader was sworn in on
Wednesday amid tight security in the
Nigerian capital Abuja. He did not make
a speech during the low-profile event
attended by members of the diplomatic
community.
Buhari, a former military ruler, won 56
percent of the votes to defeat his main
challenger, former Vice President Atiku
Abubakar of the Peoples' Democratic
Party (PDP) in the February election,
which had been beset by a host of
security and logistic issues that delayed
the vote by a week.
Following the announcement of the
election results, Abubakar filed a
petition against the outcome, a process
that is ongoing in Nigeria's appellate
court.
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Buhari will face a number of challenges
during his second term as he tries to
fulfil his election promises, including
dealing with security threats and
managing a sluggish economy and a
high unemployment rate.
Security challenges
Security remains a major challenge for
Buhari after a first term marked by
kidnappings, bandit attacks, cattle
rustling and communal conflicts.
Babatunde Fashola, a former
government minister, told Al Jazeera
that Buhari has been entrusted with
resolving the issues.
"[Insecurity] was
a campaign
issue on which
the president
has been re-
elected, which
shows the
people's trust in his ability to solve the
problem," Fashola said.
Buhari's home state of Katsina
witnessed an escalation in violence,
with several villages raided by armed
bandits, while the Boko Haram armed
group continues to operate in the
northeast of the country.
Persisting tensions in the northeast
could escalate into more violence,
according to Nnamdi Obasi, Nigeria
researcher at the International Crisis
Group.
"Boko Haram, now split into two
factions, will continue its decade-long
campaign to establish an Islamic state
in the northeast, even as the herder-
farmer violence has ebbed since the
second half of 2018," Obasi said.
In Nigeria's fertile central
region, herders and farmers continue
to fight over land and water resources,
the clashes between them claiming
hundreds of lives and displacing
thousands more.
Communities in the oil-producing Niger
Delta - which accounts for most of the
country’s foreign exchange reserves -
have long complained of government
neglect, leading to unrest in the region.
Armed groups have attacked oil
installations in the past, halting
production and kidnapping expatriate
workers. Many of those fighters were
brought under a government amnesty
which entitles them to monthly
stipends and education programmes.
In addition to the security situation,
areas polluted by oil drilling activities
have yet to be cleaned up, as a project
to tackle that issue is yet to begin.
"In the Niger Delta, the continuing
delay in addressing environmental
grievances and diverse regional
demands, coupled with possible
termination of the decade-long amnesty
programme, could lend room for
opportunistic groups to resume
sabotage of the petroleum industry,"
Obasi said.
"Countrywide, massive youth
employment, feeble policing and the
deepening atmosphere of impunity, all
suggest that kidnapping and other
public safety situation could deteriorate
further," he added.
Economic challenges
Nigeria's unemployment rate has more
than doubled to 23 percent since Buhari
assumed office in 2015, while 90
million Nigerians are living in extreme
poverty, more than than any other
country, according to findings based on
a projection by the World Poverty Clock
and compiled by the Brookings
Institution.
Nigeria is Africa's largest economy and
economic analysts say the next four
years offer another opportunity to fix
the problems.
"On the monetary policy side, they need
to abandon their fixation on the
exchange rate. The Central Bank of
Nigeria is not ready to deal with any
economic shocks at the moment
because they have boxed themselves
into a tight corner while trying to
manage the exchange rate," Nonso
Obikili, an Abuja-based economist, told sadediji2gist
"I think the economy will continue to
grow around two percent over the next
one or two years. That, of course, is
very bad given our population growth,
poverty, and jobs crisis," Obikili said.
Buhari also faces the task of weeding
out corruption, which has hurt the
economy and the ease of doing business
in the country.
According to Transparency
International's 2018 Corruption
Perceptions Index, Nigeria failed to
improve its ranking of 144th out of 180
countries from the previous year,
despite "a number of positive steps"
taken by the Buhari government.
However, the opposition has criticised
Buhari's record in the fight against
corruption, a promise he ran on in his
initial 2015 campaign.
"The fight against corruption has been
an abysmal failure, to put it mildly. It
turned from prosecution to persecution
of perceived political foes," Anthony
Ehilebo, Head of Digital Media for the
PDP's presidential campaign team, told
sadediji2gist
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